A vehicle bumper is typically the front-most or rear-most component that is attached to the vehicle's body. Such a bumper is generally designed to allow the vehicle to withstand some level of impact without sustaining extensive damage to the vehicle's body or its safety systems.
In most jurisdictions, vehicles are legally required to include bumpers. The height and placement of bumpers may be legally specified as well, to ensure that when vehicles of different heights are involved in an accident, the smaller vehicle will not slide under the larger vehicle.
Typically, vehicular bumpers are not capable of fully absorbing forces that result from high-speed impacts. On the other hand, bumpers are increasingly being designed to deflect and generate less damage to other objects during lower speed impacts.